When I heard about the crash of Germanwings Flight GWI9525 in the French Alps on the morning of March 24th, I was shocked, but to be honest, not that shocked. It's not that I expected it to happen, but this was the fifth such incident in the last year. If that frequency is maintained, the statistically-very-low chances of meeting an untimely end on a commercial flight will have to be recalculated. In the immediate aftermath of the crash I,...

Germany's national airline Lufthansa says that the flight data recorder which could provide key evidence about the causes of the Germanwings plane crash last Tuesday may never be found. Speaking on Gunter Jauch, a popular Sunday night talk show, the Lufthansa manager Kay Kratky said "it could be that the damage was so serious that it [the flight data recorder] is sending no signal." While the first black box, which contains audio recording...

The military intervention in Yemen by a US-backed coalition of Arab states will undoubtedly inflame the conflict both in Yemen, and throughout the region. It is likely to be a protracted war involving many actors, each of which is interested in furthering its own political and geopolitical agenda. However, it is the international reaction to this new regional war which is of particular interest; specifically, the way in which the United...

A group of international physicians' organizations has published a study concluding US-led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have killed more than 1.3 million people. The Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, along with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Global Survival have released a report titled "Body Count: Casualty Figures after 10 Years of the 'War on Terror.'" The...